High Fence/ Low Fence Poll Thread

This is just for my education, as I am curious what types of hunting most on this forum do. Lots of HF/LF threads and various numbers spouted off, but I'm curious how our THF brethren actually hunt.

You must vote to see the results, and there are 3 questions. Thanks for participating.

Great poll I think. Not sure what will come of it but it could shed some light on facts in regard to the THF members that chose to respond. I hope that many do. I hope everyone will use it as fact finding and keep away from the opinions and insults and maybe it will do some good.

There should be a poll on who's ever hunted a NO fence place. After all, the concept is the same. Folks got just as riled up, make that way more riled up, about putting up any fence, back in the day.

I would love a no-fence place, except the fence keeps my neighbors cows off my place. I don't need that on my property.

However, I think we can all agree, a 4-5 foot barb fence does nothing to slow a poacher or a deer trying to go across the road to a neighbors property.

Having said that, an 8 foot fence isn't stopping a poacher with a set of wire clips either

Almost all of my experience is hunting LF but I've hunted a handful of HF ranches (all 4K - 5K acres). These were not the "Grow Monster's" kind of ranches. The deer were native on each occasion. Each time the deer seemed to be harder to hunt and more aware of their environment. I was on a HF hunt in Alabama a few years ago hunting from a 20ft ladder stand. If I made the slightest movement I'd get busted. I guess they are more use to being hunted and this makes them more jumpy???

Thank you, that is exactly the goal.

Good idea Doc.

Doc, to clarify your poll-I know its pretty clear if they read the fine print but if you have hunted on more than one HF place then you should elect more than one of the acreage size choices. I think that's what you intended....?

I have never had the opportunity to hunt a high fence place, mainly due to cost. Three kids in college at one time, five cell phones, 6 vehicles insured with several years with 3 below the age of 21. I am looking for a politician who will push FREE HF hunting for all.

Bernie will

I’ve never hunted inside of a high fence but I have killed a lot of does inside of a 6K acre place and watched customers kill some 200” bucks and several nice exotics.i remember one nice 350+ elk that I wanted to kill In the middle of the road from the mule, where he’d be easy to load up. We had to negotiate price over the radio and stalk him over a hill to kill him resting over shooting sticks. Luckily the customer made a perfect kill shot before he walked too far from the road so we could drive down and winch him onto the trailer. He made a nice looking office conversation piece. The real challenge is killing the exotic sheep species.they are very wiley.

Yes sir. It will be hard to see exactly how many hunted each place, but will give an idea of what sizes are most commonly seen. So yes, if you have hunted a 250 acre, 1200 acre, and 6000 acre you will select three choices.

When I was growing up my parents owned property in San Antonio. Our place was from Weidner Rd. to Starlight Terrace. It butted up to Longhorn Cement. This was from the 40"s through 1963. Back then fences did not mean much. And back then there were not a lot of deer. Across Randolph Blvd. there was a large piece of property that was called Robards. It was supposed to become a subdivision that never panned out. We hunted it a lot. It took me until I was 15 to take my first Buck Deer. An 8 point..Back then Does were not legal, But sometimes we took them if we needed some sausage meat. As far as I can remember I never saw a GW. Times have changed and people have changed. There are more people than the resources that are available for all of them to get at the price they can afford.. Such as WT or a many of the exotics. That is one reason why HF has made it possible for more to enjoy the experience of hunting. It strikes me odd that you see and hear more LF people down grading HF hunter than you see the other way. HF hunters very seldom say anything negative about a LF hunter. The person that started this thread called a person a democrat for the way he thought. I actually think the LF people may be more like the democrat and now socialist leaning party than anything else. They think everyone should be the same. No one should have more than anyone else. If you can take a 200 inch WT they should also If you can stay in a nice big lodge and have great food prepared my a chef they should also. I don't think this is the way this great Country was founded and hopefully it gets back to what it used to be. And as always this is just my opinion and everyone knows what that is. And I am not going to do the survey because I could give a rats a** what the results are.

I know that the Chaparral WMA is high fenced, I think some others are also. I assume you are counting them as "high fence" so anyone that gets drawn for one of these has hunted a high fenced place.

that is how you interpret the "LF" hunters. If you had read the threads in their entirety you would have noticed otherwise. The majority of the people against high fence do not care if hunters and or land owners install them or care if people hunt inside them. The point we were trying to make is like it or not, a few high fence ranches and hunters paint the "hunting" picture for antis and non-hunters. High fences do not look good from the outside looking in, even if you are raising goats in them, there are inadvertently deer in there too. you applying your Bernie thoughts on 200in deer and nice lodges are ridiculous. It will not, but hopefully hunting gets back to what it used to be.

I’ve killed a few animals on no fence places. I felt elite

Do a poll on " Anyone ever crossed a fence".....

W all this craziness I’ll give my experience w HF hunting 4K acres. when fenced it was a shot ranch w 4 confirmed bucks over the age of 3.5yoa. Noting imported no supplemental feeding and 7 years of killing only does and spikes we had our first year of a proper age class distribution. For the next 3 years only 2 mature bucks were allowed to be killed. For years 10-20 the ranch produced tons of quality animal that were amazing and nearly..... impossible to harvest. Most of the biggest deer died of old age or killed post prime, even w the use of the MLD extended season. The HF had very little to do with keeping animals in and almost every thing w keeping stuff out. Every year some monster would be seen form the sky once and never seen again. Of course we had target deer and some would get harvested but the antler drop box had a few 200” deer that went on with their life until they died. Our density was “kept” to a deer to every 25 acres. Thats not a lot of deer on 4K acres so hunting there was a challenge most folks can’t imagine. It takes metric shizz ton of work dedication and patients to commit to that level of animal husbandry just say’n

100 votes so far!

That sounds like one heck a of place

No but buddies place is surrounded by HF. Still has 5 miles of a river not HFed... Doesn't hunt like a HFed place at all. Our lease has 1/2 mile HFed and same. Still have 5 miles open.

Well I screwed up because I hunted Black Buck behind a high fence. Was thinking of WT only.

Poll is deer only. You’re OK.

FYI Blackbuck are easily contained by a 4’ fence as well

Good friend of mines grandpa bought 4K acres in south Texas back in the early 90’s.

Aerial survey reviled they only had 1 buck around the 130” mark on it. Decision was made to high fence, feed and manage the native herd. No DMP pens, no outside genetics. Ranch is managed for deer and cattle like very few places are.


Now they have killed multiple 200’ bucks with 170’s and 180’s being quite common.

It was, Family feud caused it to be sold......

Voted. Interesting to see how this plays out if its gets a lot of votes.

You left out one category though!......Have you ever hunted a ranch that butted up against a high fence ranch?

I have several times and I've had very good results as the deer tend to travel the trails along side the fence, which makes it easy to pattern their travel.

interesting results, but there are entirely too many people in rural tx that will buy a license and hunt to shoot their 4 or 5 deer every year that don't know that the hunting forum exists.

Joining this forum should be mandatory just like hunters ed.

Yep, I've seen for myself it's had that effect with Erath Kid's place.